Magick & Spirituality Are Due An Upgrade!

General Discussion
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I Believe Many Magicians Today Are Stuck In The Past Using Primitive Methods For Magick!… The New Age Is Inevitable And Soon Technology And Magick Will Be Commonplace!!!

As with every article that I write there is going to be some degree of controversy involved. I like to talk about the issues many try to avoid for this very reason. In that small little title there are a few things that most likely grabbed your attention. Stuck in the past, primitive methods, new age and technology. I would guess many responded emotionally and defensively to my statement of being stuck in the past and using private methods and many others will have likely already had a strong opinion about the use of the term “new age”. So now let’s dissect my statement here.

I believe many magicians and spiritual practitioners are stuck in the past using primitive and outdating methods for magick. Now that is not to say that certain areas of practice are outdated as history can be a great teacher. I do however, feel that many of the primitive methods still being used today are long overdue for an upgrade. This goes not just for methods of magickal practice but also concepts that are outdated. With science as advanced as it is today with the ability to look at the very building blocks of reality and some of the deep complexities of the mind, spirituality and science now for the first time can go hand in hand and complement each other to an extend history never seen.

Yet even with science being able to explain certain phenomena and debunking certain experiences, many practitioners still cling to primitive methods and concepts. Let’s take Ouija for example. While the board itself is not that far back in history for a long time people have believed in its supernatural power, even long after ideomotor response has been documented, proven and made available for the public to learn about. Many still want to believe in the supernatural even if the evidence shows them otherwise. Many do not want to see the truth as it breaks their fantasy world (a growing and huge problem in our communities today). Yet even aside from these rather basic concepts let’s get a bit more specific.

Many practitioners are still using primitive tools in ritual work and few are implementing technology into their rituals as a more dominant element. We are still using sigils drawn on paper yet we have the technology to literally create the sounds of that sigils vibrational frequency. We are all still using candle flames as a focusing aid and yet we have the ability to create a slideshow of subliminal messages to manipulate our subconscious mind. We are all still using drums for music yet we have the ability to create an entire virtual reality space for our ritual. Technology has advanced exponentially in the past decade and few have been brave enough to include it in their ritual work.

Most magicians are still using medieval methods and tools, forgetting that in this day and age they are mostly outdated and irrelevant. Growing up and living in a technologically advanced world our minds (and more so our subconscious) is already programmed with a reliance on technology. That is a huge benefit to magicians and in time I reckon technology and magickal practice will be commonplace. We have the technology to measure energy fluctuations, heat changes in the atmosphere to measure the slightest of changes in almost anything. Technology can bring a much needed immersion to our ritual space. Imagine being able to create a virtual ritual space within your mind using just a few pieces of technology that captivates your main senses. I believe over time magick will be brought into this new age of technology. Just because magick is thought of as ancient… does not mean it cannot be upgraded and modernised. You go with the times or the times move you… will you evolve with the times? Or will you live in the past like a ghost?

Photography by Sara Lourenco’s Photography

All Rights Reserved

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This is a curios subject. How would one go around and do this? It would seem to be a very useful tool🤔

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Yes, certain modalities in magick can always be upgraded (of course they can) but fire is still fire and water is still water (even if you reduce those elements to the level of Quantum physics - which would be just a matter of semantics, anyway). Sure you could use a holographic emblem of fire, or even a thought of it, but how is that benefiting magick? Is there not a danger here of wanting the “fast food” culture to join with spirituality? Technology should never be a trap into laziness.

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Im not talking about base elements. Im not saying replace nature with virtual reality, im not saying take away actual fire for a graphic one. I am talking about using technology we have to enhance the methods we already have. For example, we are still using paper sigils, why arent more people using projectors to project the sigil onto a screen to provide a larger more immersive focusing aid? Why are we relying only on our intuition to measure experiences when we can measure them with equipment such as heat detection cameras. I am not saying we get rid of the old methods, I am talking about expanding on them and bringing them into the new age with technology. I am not talking about replacing.

If anything it takes more willpower and action to go out of our way to scientifically measure our results with the equipment that exists out there. Mainly because it then give a lot less wiggle room to look at what results you actually get other than just personal biases. In all honesty folks who measure results just on how they feel rather than actually measuring them with available equipment are in a way more lazy than those who take the time and dedication to get measurable results.

Bare also in mind this is just food for thought. Im not implying technology should take over magick, Im simply suggesting that we could benefit by including it in our work with the equipment that is out there, and to look at outdated concepts and debunk them.

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Have you seen the large neon MacDonalds sigil that hovers over just about every city on Earth? This technology is already in place, and not necessarily to good end. The measure of ANY society is when its technology catches up with its morality. This we are woefully behind.

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I personally always adapt. I use whatever works, I don’t care. I use a broken laptop as a black mirror.

I imagine quite a lot of people here do the same. Now, the purpose behind these articles you post here is clear to me: you want to make others think. While I find nothing wrong with that, I find it a tad pointless. Take a look at it this way:

You post an article

The person reads it,-- maybe thinks about it – and then they’ll return to whatever works for them. Primitive or not. If it works for them, it works.

I do like some of your work, but I find this, as I’ve said, pointless. I mean, if it works for them, and there’s no benefit to them incorporate something new just for the sake of it being new, why bother? Improving, advancing, and evolving is always good, but you need to direct it somewhere. It must have a purpose. Getting/doing new things for the sake of doing them, and without other benefits is nonsensical.

Now, you seem to be pushing the narrative that science and magick / spirituality are not at odds. While that, technically, is true, bear in mind that we live in an age where many scientists adapt materialistic dogma. If you were to go to these very scientists you may praise, they would call you outright delusional. Even if you pose magick under the guise of psychology. Go ahead and attempt to explain The Principle of Mentalism (ALL is mind) to a materialistic scientist (without butchering the principle!), you’ll just be laughed at for believing there’s a higher mental force/higher mind and that we’re manifestations of it.

Things such as ouija boards, pendulums, and so on are easily debunked. But there are things which are definitely transcending our reality as we know it. To claim that science (atm) understands everything (related to magick) and even can understand everything is 1) pretentious 2) arrogant 3) false 4) a faith claim, thus antithetical to science itself, ironically.

We operate in a very small window of this reality, as I’m sure you know. To think that forces currently unknown to science do not exist, and are a fantasy delusion is, again, a claim based on faith.

Whenever the so-called skeptics are presented with compelling evidence of paranormal (reincarnation documentary, clinical death, and so on), they attempt to nitpick, and when they fail, they’ll just resort to insults and shouting “bullshit fantasy delusions!”

Tone it down, @asbjorntorvol , is what I’m saying. You do not understand everything (or even the vast majority of it) about magick. Your arrogance may just be the very thing that will fuck you in the ass when you’re not looking well enough.

edit: typos and added comments

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i’m talking about practicing magicians like ourselves doing this, not a corporation who uses psychological techniques to manipulate you.

Here is a question for you, if we magicians started incorporating those same techniques, would people be as easily manipulated by the big fast food signs?

Not so much no.

If we were to use technology more, understand those techniques and write about it so we can help others do the same, the simple awareness that big companies are doing this to us would be significantly less as that information is being consciously filtered instead of being subconsciously processed.

yes corporations are shit, that however is another topic.

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Ill keep this short. My writing style is to promote discussion and debate. I have always done it this way. I pic a point of view, write about it then we discuss. Just because I don’t tip toe around topics to avoid offending people doesn’t make it arrogant, I state my view on something, then I expand on it, and then I leave that open to be scrutinized. All my work is aimed at promoting thought, debate and discussion, that is all. Its not my word is law, its here look at this view, lets discuss and debate it and see what we can come up with.

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I never said that. I admire your boldness and to-the-point writing style. The problem is when you claim that you understand magick completely or most of it. And that science can easily explain everything related to magick. It can’t right now.

Attempt to explain reincarnation, breaking reincarnation cycles, continuing after death as an independent entity using scientific knowledge only. No Hermeticism, no esoteric stuff. Just pure hard-core scientific information.

And that’s fine. But make these debates mean something, will you? You need to know WHY you’re fighting, and WHAT you’re fighting for, you know?

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Thought provoking content is good. It’s why we are here in the first place.

We challenge ideas, morality, dogmas and all in between here on BALG. Can’t say we have the same measure of freedom doing this in public without being ridiculed.

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Indeed it is. I love that sort of content. I for example enjoyed Asbjorn’s take on psychic abilities and life after death. But there is a trap we all fall into:

We replace one dogma with another, without even being aware of it.

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We all are hypocrites in some levels. We all have our set of ideas and beliefs, sometimes we challenge them but not us. We are imperfect but we can strive to learn from our mistakes and grow.

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Of course. That’s why I don’t cling onto any belief. Attachment is quite dangerous, don’t you know?

But~and I say this with the best of intentions, it’d be great if we would pull our heads out of our asses and slap ourselves more often.

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I have explained many of those concepts through scientific lingo and many scientists have come to several of the same conclusions on reality as my own work.

But as for Hermeticism, when I discuss hermeticism I always use science to outline those concepts. The Law of Vibration when you dissect it is itself a scientific principle, which is one of the first principles students who study physics learn.

And as for debating skeptics, I do this on a regular basis and typically get good responses. Yes there is the obvious insults when they loose a debate.

As for these debates meaning something, our community and society needs baby steps. I focus on topics to get folks thinking and debating. Society at this point cant handle debate, so ill take it one step at a time. My job is to instigate thought, discussion and debate, im not fighting for anything, I simply aim for magicians to talk and expand their own minds through that discussion.

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Do you have any of these discussions or debates recorded, I’d like to see them, thanks>

It is. The Law of Mentalism, as understood by Hermeticists, is not. Yet.

At least they let people know when they’ve thrown in the towel when they do that.

I suppose, but you have to kick it up a notch over time.

As for the word fighting, I used it metaphorically. I know exactly why you’re doing this.

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There are far more big corporations with master magicians than the rest of us peons. As to education, yes I am all for that. Your diatribe seems to suggest we can “awake the masses” when we all know this will never happen. Less than 10 percent are spiritually even aware, less still those who are open to change. A simple numbers game.

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Maybe you’re hanging around the wrong magicians. Try the DKMU group on FB. We had a couple of people with sigil covered supersoakers with butcher knife bayonettes cleanse a haunted playground the other day. People using media for hypersigls, all kinds of absurd stuff.

What magic needs is a unifying theory, such as Attention/Schema theory. I need to start pushing that more.

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Techno Paganism isn’t anything new its been around since the 90’s you just need to look in the right places and you will find tech pagan crowd lol

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It seems that we do use a lot of technology in our modern magic, both physical machine technology, and digital technology congruent with our dark ages approaches.

Common recognition is a tool to build trust. It’s basic marketing. It’s why large golden arch sigils are effective to evoke a sense of fun and comfort for the hungry, but it’s also why daily sigil meditation is effective to invoke the attributes of an entity. So familiarity breeds a sense of trust, and so does experience.

While printing out a sigil is wonderful and quick, there is also the tactile experience of creating and painting one’s own sigil that will provide a personal and tactile touch even more so than using digital Photoshop or Illustrator to design a pristine and linearly perfect one. Until there is a way to sign a holograph in blood, I’m relegated to the physical paper.

I wonder if a lot of us remain closer to the dark ages with regard to the miracles of digital technology because they still provide a bit of an impersonal barrier between the spiritual and the human.

Some of us are on board using our computerized devices for meditation, like YouTube for binaural beats, shamanic drumming, chakra mantras. Others feel more in tune spiritually using actual drums, didgeridoos, meditation beads, or chanting circles.

We are gradually modernizing into digital technology; now we can find correct pronunciations, timing, and melodies for mantras online; we can save our experiences in online grimoires, and print, edit and cross-reference them at our leisure with pdfs and the cloud. We can instantly photograph flames and smoke when we see our entity appear, and we can splat it all over social media, creating more recognition and de-occultifying the occult.

As the prices on complex audio and studio software go down with the amount of finesse and detail capture on the increase, more of us will be able to share our experiences with a critical audience at the same education level.

As an artist, I have used huge projectors (borrowed) to beam an image onto a surface…so I could save time and paint it onto the surface. Why not purchase the projector? I don’t want one; for the price it wouldn’t get used often enough, it requires electricity, not as helpful in a forest, cave, or bright light. I don’t need batteries for my painting, or my fabric magic circle (that I can order with a few taps online).

Biofeedback machines are effective and astronomically priced, as are many of the photographic machines (x-rays, MRIs, etc). We don’t yet have reasonable access to an EEG machine to absolutely verify if we ARE in a theta brain wave state during our meditations and evocations, let Alone ensure that we ARE experiencing synchronous gamma spikes rather than simply running on our delusions and hallucinations. If they made cellphones with that capability, however…

The use of technology is really about the bottom line: what can we afford, what is most convenient, what are we willing to pay for? Electricity is great…until I cannot access it. When my GPS dies, I’m fucked without a hard copy map, but the stars are marginally useful. Until digital technology gives me free and unlimited access to electricity, I’ll remain partial to the physical world of technology and use digital technology as a backup because I don’t trust it in the same way for the price. Then again, I’m not a millennial.

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Sometimes an old approach stimulates the mind better. Depending on the case (I am in the middle), a magician will be fine that way; another may prefers to know the stimulation’s details and how to get results with a modern method.
However, indeed I’ve read about four robots (sort of) to be placed in the corners or sides of the “cosmic laboratory”, i.e. the temple, with certain colors, sounds and motion; each one symbolizes an element or the corresponding kind of elementals.

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